y-intercept blog

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Democrats seek to impeach Attorney General William Barr because he redaction portions of the Mueller Report related to Grand Jury Testimonies. The press is framing this as a conflict between the Legislative and Executive Branch. This is a foolish tactic because the conflict is actually between the Legislature and Judicial System. While there is a strong argument that the executive should bend to the legislature. The case that Grand Juries should bend to the legislature isn't as strong.

I suspect that the impeachment of Barr is a response the the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder. The impeachment of Eric Holder was related to the Fast and Furious gun running scandal. The guns involved in the scandal were involved in numerous murders in Mexico and the US.

Just before the scandal broke, the left was running a narrative that unscrupulous gun shops were selling large quantities of guns to the Mexican cartels which the cartels and that guns sold by evil conservatives were being used to kill innocent people.

The Fast and Furious scandal showed that the gun running was being done under the direction of the ATF. It seems strange that Obama was pushing an anti-gun narrative while the ATF was letting a large number of guns walk.

Sadly, there have been numerous episodes indicating that the Federal Government has been complicit in both gun trade and drug trade. The impeachment of Eric Holder was related to a much more serious scandal than the impeachment of William Barr. The center of the Barr Impeachment is the redaction of Grand Jury evidence in the Mueller Report. This impeachment is not on the scale of the Holder Impeachment which involved arming dangerous drug cartels.

The Fast and Furious Scandal appears to be a case of the Deep State run amok. The obstruction that took place in the Obama Administration prevented us from having a full picture of what really happened. This should be a major topic of debate.

Monday, April 08, 2019

I wrote this post because I want to record a reference to a chapter of the Bible in case I need it later.

I live in Utah. A common narrative in this state is that "a mob" of unruly gentiles killed Joseph Smith with the implication that everyone who is not Mormon is somehow guilty of this great crime.

I finally got sick and tired of the narrative and studied the death of Joseph Smith. Crimes that Smith had committed in his life include the burning of press, adultery (he "sealed himself to other men's wives"), child molestation (he "sealed himself" to 14-year-old girls). He committed banking fraud and there were numerous murders associated with his group including an attempt to assassinate Lilburn Boggs who had been the territorial Governor of Missouri.

These were all real crimes with documented evidence.

According the account of John Taylor (who was LDS). Joseph Smith, John Taylor and Hyrum Smith had guns. They fired on the crowd gathered outside the jail and killed two of the people in the crowd before someone in the crowd fired back.

Joseph Smith himself was shot while trying to squirm through a window and and escape.

This was not the case of a perfect man being falsely accused and lynched by a mob. The people who shot Smith were acting in self defense. Smith was escaping from a jail.

The idea that people who aren't Mormon are supposed to share some sort of collective guilt for this action is absurd.

NOTE: From 1844 to 1919, the LDS Church included a thing called the Oath of Vengeance against the United States. This oath was a sacred oath sworn by Mormons in Temple ceremonies. The wording of the oath are: "You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation."

Generations of Mormons actually swore a curse on the United States of America for the death of Joseph Smith: Wikipedia.

The fact that Mormons swore an oath on this nation shows that the LDS Church charges non-Mormons with collective guilt for the event.

I have had Mormons swear guilt on me for this and other events.

Anyway, I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover and this passage in Deuteronomy (KJV Version) jumped out at me:

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

The prescription in Deuteronomy 13 is that "Dreamer of Dreams" who presents "signs of wonder" (like the Book of Mormon or The Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Abraham) should be put to death.

The use of the passive voice implies, of course, that it is the will of God that the Dreamer of Dreams is put to death.

I strongly oppose people who kill others and claim that the murder was the will of God. The fact that Smith's death is precisely the death one would expect for a false prophet jumps out at me.

The reason for this post: I have been in multiple conversations with Mormons who hold that all non-Mormons are complicit in the death of Joseph Smith. If this happens again I will direct the person who is making this collective accusation against the United States for Smith's death and point out that Smith's death is precisely what the Bible prescribes for false prophets.

This quote does create a troubling paradox: It says that one should kill people who falsely claim to be prophets of God. The person who is doing the killing in the name of God is setting himself up as a prophet of God and is setting himself up for the exact same judgment that he inflicted on others.

Killing people in the name of God is just plain wrong-headed and stupid. In Smith's case, his group fired into a crowd and someone in the crowd fired back (aka self-defence). The very way that Smith died provides further evidence that the guy was a false prophets. Most of the people who claim to be prophets are false.

Saturday, October 06, 2018

I started using the SteemIt platform. SteemIt is a social media platform built around a Smart Media Token called STEEM. It is possible to sell STEEM on the open market; so it possible to make money on the platform.

I started using SteemIt 186 days ago. I've written 702 posts and have earned $16.92. That is about nine cents a day and about two and a half cents per post!

WARNING: Most Steemians make less than that, and the price of STEEM might go up in a puff of steam and my hard earned tokens will lose their value before I cash out.

I've made more on SteemIt than I've made through Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter.

Social media is not leading people to widespread prosperity. It is making our society more polarized and class-oriented than ever.

I am using SteemIt.com, however, because I feel that it is attracting users who have an entrepreneurial spirit. It has a user base filled with people who might be looking toward creating real businesses.

Anyway, I just dropped a thread on SteemIt that introduce my intentions on creating a business. SteemIt.com just imposed some resource constraints that limit my ability to answer questions about what I am doing. So, I decided to drop this post in connection with my SteemIt post so that people can contact me using the blogger comment section below.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Last night I had another vivid dream. It was about a person who blew his life savings to produce an off-Broadway musical. The highlight of the musical was a song called "She and Her Ship Sailed Apart."

I remember the song because the song actually made sense but I could only remember the title and not the lyrics when i awoke.

Friday, September 28, 2018

I dreamt that I was
addicted to a computer game. The first half of the dream was me playing
the game. I wanted to keep playing but was forced, by life, to stop.

The second half of the dream involved me doing things while I really, really, really wanted to get back to the computer game.

In
the third half of the dream, I finally got back to the game device. I
had a really hard time getting the gaming device to work. I finally got
it on, but I couldn't remember what the game was and realized that I
must be in a dream.

I really wish I could remember the
game that had me so thoroughly addicted. If I could remember it; then I
could write up the computer code, put it on the Internet and make
billions getting people addicted to a computer game.

Actually this problem happens frequently. I have a two part dream and wake up when I can't remember the first half or can't find a way of reconciling the two halves of the dream.

But, guess what? This case is taking place in England. English citizens don't have First Amendment Rights! They don't have Second Amendment Rights either. England is a different country. England has a different legal system.

So, lets look at the law that allows the crown to arrest people for breaching the queen's peace. What is the political group that would support such a law.

Well. It turns out that there is a political movement that promotes the monarchy. The group used to be called "Tories." They changed their name to "The Conservative Party" in the 1830s. The took the name from the effort to restore the French Monarchy after the French Revolution. Members of the Conservative Party continue to call themselves "Tories."

This idea that the crown need to arrest people for breaching the Queen's peace is fundamental to conservatism.

Mr Robinson, who identifies with the tern conservative, is being thrown into prison for a law the epitomizes the conservative tradition.

The Republican Party in the United States has a fundamentally different world view than the Conservative Party of England. Notably, the conservative party does not support either the First nor Second Amendments.

Republicans who use the term "conservative" to describe the traditional values of the Republican Party have created an untenable mess.

I feel bad for Mr. Robinson. He is in a very scary situation. He has been reporting about Islamic gangs in Britain and is being placed in a prison full of gang members.

This sad event shows what happens when people systematically misuse their terms. The "conservative" ideology was created by the Tories, Republicans are destroying our ability to defending freedom by using this absurd term.

Friday, May 18, 2018

I am interested in seeing how one can use the "blockchain" to monetize web development; So, I've been wasting time on steemit to learn about the blockchain culture.

I decided that it would be fun to sell advertising for cryptocurrency. Because crypto does not have a large transaction fee, I decided that I could sell advertising in smaller blocks; so I offering 10,000 targeted ads for $2.50. That is 40 page views for one penny. Most of my web traffic is in the Mountain West (Az, Co and Utah). I have a small amount of global traffic that I can stick ads on.

Here is the ad order page. I made the image below for a SteemIt post about the need for people using steem to interface with the rest of the web.

Saturday, May 05, 2018

I listened to a podcast in which the announcer was talking at an infuriatingly slow pace. While listening to the podcast, I noticed that the speaker made few mistakes.

I re-listened to my first three podcasts. It appears that I was talking too fast; So, I decided to re-record my second podcast at a slower rate. I think I was talking too slow. I would love feedback.

Does talking fast or talking slow effect your perception of what I am saying?

I am also super curious about how people respond to my terms. I use the term "classical liberal" for the ideals of the US Founders. I use a five dollar word "partisan dialectics" to describe the new think behind the left and right.

While researching Youtube, I discovered that thousands of youtube content creators are upset with the platform. I am even more delighted to discover entrepreneurs creating alternatives to Facebook and Youtube.

So, I set up accounts at both Minds and SteemIt and hope to post at these locations regularly.

These platforms are fine, but what I think we really need is to find ways to revive the independent web. The independent web is one where people own their own web domain and have a hosted web account. My Steemit Post for today talks about the positive role that human edited directories play in the independent web.

Thursday, May 03, 2018

The theme I want to develop is that the left/right split was created as an effort to destroy the American Experiment in Self Rule.
The goal of the first episode is to define terms. I need a term for the ideals of the US Founders and a term for the core methodology that exists in both conservatism and progressivism.

I define the term "Classical Liberalism" as the application of classical logic to the question of liberty. I also note that the US Founders play a key role in the classical liberal tradition.

I am using a five dollar term "partisan dialectics" to describe the core methodology used by partisans. Here is the podcast.